Role of Compromise in Delaying the Civil War Essay

Most of the time, compromise helps stop a fight from starting and is generally a way to end a fight. However, the Civil War was only delayed by compromise because both sides didn’t want to give anything up. Compromise’s role in delaying the Civil War was keeping both the North and South happy, but it didn’t help.

The Missouri Compromise was a good plan in theory. It made one state a slave state and another state free. It alternated between the two to keep it even. The Missouri Compromise made Missouri a slave state, and made Maine a free state. Eventually, they split slave states and free states along the 36-30 parallel, which divided the states into North and South. The North became free states and the South became the slave states. The Missouri Compromise helped keep things neat and even but split the states.

The Compromise of 1850 was made to settle issues between North and South about territory and slavery that was caused by the Mexican-American War. There were five bills made. The first bill was that California was a free state. The second state was that Texas would be paid compensation by the government for giving California and New Mexico up. The third bill was that New Mexico was a new state without any specific prohibition of slavery. The fourth bill was that there would be no slave trade in Washington DC. The fifth bill was that if a slave ran away, people would have to chase after it no matter what. Even though this was a compromise, the North and South didn’t really like it that much. Texas especially didn’t like it because they lost a lot of territory.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act created two new states, but they were voted upon using popular sovereignty. Rather than having them be free state and slave state by the Missouri Compromise, it was decided that the citizens would vote on it. This was known as popular sovereignty (voting on whether or not the state would be free or slave state), and people from the north and south came up to vote. This compromise wasn’t even that well planned, and was only made so a railroad could be put down. It lead to Bleeding Kansas where many people died due to differentiating options on slavery.

The Missouri Compromise split the North and South on terms of slavery. The Compromise of 1850 caused Texas to give up property and get rid of slavery in Washington DC. The Kansas-Nebraska Act introduced popular sovereignty to the states, and also caused Bloody Kansas. From all of this, it’s easy to see that the compromises were supposed to keep the states happy, but it only lead to the states separating into North and South and fights breaking out.

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